They Just Won’t Believe God’s Word

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. Col. 2:8

The following are quotes from a NazNet thread called “The Search For Adam and Eve.” Some of these comments are from ordained pastors. After being on that site for a few years now, my jaw still drops when I occasionally visit and read what they are writing. If I am the only one disturbed by their discussion, perhaps I’m in serious need of re-visiting what I trust from Scripture.

If on the other hand, there is something terribly wrong there, we need to pray for these folks.

When I read Genesis, God tells us how He created the first man and woman. He tells us it was two people named Adam and Eve. Paul referenced Eve and how she was deceived by the serpent, and Jesus quoted Genesis in regards to divorce, in Luke 10, when He said, “and God made them.” Paul plainly wrote that sin and death came into the world through one man: Adam. I have no reason to doubt what God said in His word. If I did, why would that not lead me eventually to doubt other things He has said in Scripture as being true and historical? If I need empirical proof of a literal Adam and Eve, then perhaps I should demand empirical proof of Christ’s resurrection! Yet, these people at NazNet write as if they are members of the heretical Jesus Seminar, who got together and voted one at a time as to what words Jesus said were really His words, or not.

Having read much of what these folks have written in the past, they seem to have the mindset of those from the modernist movement, whose proponents claimed that we can know the truth, but that we would find the truth via man’s intellectual endeavors and reasoning, not by simply believing the truth of the Bible as plainly written. They have a hard time believing in the supernatural power of God to do what He wants, in the way He says He did, if it does not fit their pet theories. They reject Jesus Himself when he made a clear statement of Adam’s actual existence. Yet they have no problem accepting the absurd, poorly devised explanation of our origins, the theory (really a hypothesis at best) called evolution. They will readily embrace the big-bang, but will also quickly and selectively reject the Bible. They readily accept the elitist musings of evolutionary high priest Karl Giberson, who rejects Holy Scripture’s teaching, including the fact that it plainly tells us that homosexuality is a sin (see recent post). And they then proceed to call him a man of strong faith! Yes, strong faith in his science and his intellect, but not in the Bible.

So here are some highlighted quotes, including from a couple of prominent professors from Nazarene universities who have been causing much damage in our Christian institutions, but few seem to care. But those who do care will continue to warn others, and expose them, as Scripture requires us to do. I’ve said in the past that NazNet is a breeding ground for emergent heresy and false teaching, and this proves it again.

Quotes from NazNet Discussion:

“I welcome what Karl Giberson and others in the Church of the Nazarene are doing in the area of life science.”

“Giberson is a person of strong faith, and I am grateful for his involvement in the discussion. He is not “the enemy.”

“I still think its important we focus people on what scripture intends to teach us with these stories (which has little, if anything, to do with historical details).”

“Archaeology tells us there’s no evidence for anything in the biblical timeline before the Sinai wanderings.”

“I am still comfortable with the idea that God’s word isn’t resistant to truth.”

“Yea… as far as I know, all signs point to no Sinai wondering, no Exodus..

“somehow it would strengthen my faith in the creator were we to learn that when he made man in His Own image, He did it many places, times and cases, rather than what I have understood as a one time, one case, one pile of dust only.”

“As for ‘Adam’ being one man or representative of all humankind or even both, my hope is that people who desire to grow spiritually will leave room for these interpretations.”

“I can live with Adam and Eve being idealised representations of something that really happened beyond the reach of human awareness…”

“I fully believe there was a first sin – I just don’t think we can believe the writers of Genesis knew exactly how it came about any more than we do. Maybe they did, I just haven’t seen any evidence yet to support it.

“Thankfully, I do believe that God inspired the Bible, so although it’s a cultural mythology, it is the cultural mythology which God selected to tell humans about the relationship between them and God.”

“I didn’t say they don’t exist. [Adam and Eve] I don’t know…. I just said there’s no evidence to support the claim.”

“I don’t think there were two people named Adam and Eve, but there were people who first understood their relationship to God and those people sinned in a way that has real consequences for the world hereafter. There’s a real difference between the theological position of “first people” and the biological/historical consequences of Adam and Eve.”

“I have come to the place where I find it spiritual strengthening to allow God to have created man however He wanted, and to have described it to man also however He felt it was best for man to hear/discover it. It’s miraculous, however one looks at it.”

“How does the genealogies given to us in the Bible give us a real connection. They are not exactly verified by empirical data. They have to be taken on some measure of faith.”… I think it is safer to say that Luke is writing that Jesus is in fact a human being, rather than making any statement about Adam.”

“Why does it have to be factually consistent? It was written in a time frame that facts are not really considered the same as facts are today. They would mix in political as well as mythological aspects into their historical writings so to look at something that traces a genealogy of a historic person in this time period you might run into some very complicated problems…”

Response to ‘so Adam was not the first man?’

“I do not know, I was not there. My position in regards to this question is that I simply hold no stock in it. If God reveals to me that there was some guy named Adam who was the very first person I doubt it would change my understanding of Christian Theology.”

This is from a prominent ordained pastor/professor from NNU, Dr. Tom Oord:

“… I think some of you will be interested in Michael Ruse’s June 10 Huffington Post essay, “Adam and Eve Didn’t Exist. Get Over It!” He wrote it in light of the Christianity Today article. Although his rhetoric can be a bit harsh, I agree with the main point Michael is making…http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michae…_b_874982.htm

“I’m not buying the theory that in order for Jesus to fulfill the role of the Second Adam, we’d need an historical first one.”

“So my point was that though the story is about individuals, we might very well interpret it more broadly since it doesn’t appear to be historical.”

From another prominent Nazarene professor at PLNU, Dennis Bratcher:

“…this narrative [Adam and Eve] is not an historical account about ultimate origins (in spite of the Greek name of the book, Genesis). Rather it focuses on a representative couple as a way to talk about humanity in general, and the story of God and humanity…. to try to read this story as a historical account leaves us with questions for which the only answers are speculation and guesses, some of which drift into the ludicrous.”

“According to the scientific evidence, the genre of the story, and the worldview of the Ancient Near East, Adam doesn’t appear to be the first man.”

According to the book of Luke, Abraham was the great-great-great-great-great-great grandson of Cainan. Was Abraham fictional? What about Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Judah, Boaz, and Joseph who raised Jesus? Are they allegorical figures?

If some of these people were real and some were nothing more than cartoon characters, at what point did a cartoon character beget a real person?

There were those in Jesus day that did not believe and wanted a sign before they would believe His teaching. Sadly today we still have some in the Christian community that do not believe unless they have proof. I believe that if they had proof, giving some time, they would no longer believe what they once thought they believed and doubt would take over again and their search for truth would begin all over.

The difference between those who accept God’s word as God’s word and those who continually find fault with His word is who their teacher is. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians [2: 13-14] “These things we also speak not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

Take Adam and Eve, Michael Ruse and Dr. Oord needs to study the author of Scripture a little more closely and get to know Him a little better then perhaps they will understand.

Funny… as alluded to above, you don’t list geneaologies for fictitious figures. And at what point does the historical become myth?

John MacArthur points out in his book “Battle for the Beginning” that the first three chapters of Genesis sets the stage for the entire Christian faith. If these things are not true, we may as well jettison Christianity.

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